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This paper investigates how message construction, style, content, and the textual content of embedded images impacted message retransmission over the course of the first 8 months of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in the United States.

The paper concludes that during an infodemic, with misinformation and disinformation surging and swirling around us all, the use of evidence-based communication strategies is crucial. Some of the recommendations include:

• Don’t Be Cute About It: Our findings support evidence that the public responds to and shares messages with practical information about the pandemic, its impacts ,and ways to take action. Focusing on useful content rather than gimmicks to go ‘‘viral’’ will be helpful in the long run.
• Use Media Critically: Videos and images can be powerful tools to amplify messages. For images, having meaningful content embedded in them is crucial for their success—simply adding images without relevant content can potentially reduce message retransmission.
• Not Everything Should Be an Image :Largely, information embedded in images has a qualitatively similar impact on retransmission to information in the message text itself. Therefore, when crafting messages, focus on what information will be useful rather than through which medium it is delivered.